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AmiMoJo writes: "A Japanese court has ordered the operator of the Ohi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, not to restart two of its reactors, citing inadequate safety measures. The plant's No. 3 and 4 reactors were halted for regular inspections last September. Local residents filed a lawsuit asking that the reactors be kept offline. They said an estimate of possible tremors is too small, and that the reactors lack backup cooling systems. The operator, Kansai Electric Power Company, has insisted that no safety problems exist."

I'd only like to add that Ohi means Ouch in Italian, and that the reactor who blew up in chernobyl was number four, and 4 is a bad luck number in Japan. Watch those temp dials guys, don't pull a Simpson.

That failure took the combined effort of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded AND a massive tsunami. Even if the safety measures in place were deemed 'adequate' they would never be able to stop that. The safety measures in place have worked fine in that country for the better part of a century, this is overreacting on the grandest scale.

The earthquake took the plant off-line not the Tsunami. That model of nuclear reactor had a known safety defect which the manufacturer was too cheap to fix. Stop bullshitting for an industry with a horrible safety track record.

compare against coal which has had to pick up the missing supply in Japan.

Sure, but nobody is seriously proposing coal as a long term solution. Japan is an island nation in the tradewind belt. All major cities are close to both mountain ridges and offshore sites that would be ideal for wind turbines. So what happens when the wind stops? I have been to Hokkaido, and it never stops.

I'd prefer not to include Chernobyl since it was literally a catastrophe waiting to happen. A reactor with no containment building, really? Nothing like that ever got built outside the Soviet bloc. Even if included, deaths per gigawatt hour from nuclear barely amount to a rounding error [withouthotair.com] when compared to fossil fuel.

I'd say as things are, coal is just as long term a solution in Japan as the nuclear plants. There just aren't that many workable alternatives. Natgas plants perhaps, but recent investigation suggests that methane leaks in production and distribution are probably enough to render greenhouse gas emissions similar in magnitude to coal. Nuclear power has risks of course. Unfortunately the world has magnified those risks a great deal by collective failure to deploy newer and safer reactor technologies. Case in point: Fukushima Daiichi. Generation I plants with known serious failure modes. There's no earthly reason Gen I plants should still be in operation. For comparison, how many businesses are depending on 1960 era computer systems, and how many people drive 1960 cars as primary transportation?

Apportioning the blame for this, in my opinion divides roughly in thirds between corporate sloth/greed, government fecklessness and societal ignorance/paranoia.

Hence my last paragraph, stating "There's no earthly reason Gen I plants should still be in operation."

Nuclear power has significant risks. So does every other power source we have identified to this point. Those risks range from radioisotope pollution (nuclear, coal ash), to greenhouse gases and particulates (burning hydrocarbons), massive flooding (hydro), to risks of grid instability (solar, wind), technology availability risks (carbon capture, power storage, fusion), etc.

The containment buildings are there to contain the nuclear fuel if it manages to melt through the bottom of the steam reactor vessel, not to contain gas pressure. Older-style buildings which are designed for that are speherical steel spheres accessed through airlocks for a reason.

The buidling overpressure from ignition of accumulated hydrogen which blew the roof off was a direct result of attempts to retain gasses in contravention of the operating manual, which says "vent that stuff" - it goes pretty much s

People die each year falling off roofs whilst installing solar and wind has killed a surprising number of installation/maintenance techs. The numbers are even higher if you include road crashes travelling from depot to operational site (with or without the start/end of work commute).

If the other energy industries had to comply with the same safety standards as nuclear they'd be shut down overnight - and that's even with the "lax standards"

Actually the Japanese are burning more LNG with some extra coal to replace some of their nuclear generating capacity. In the 12 months up to March 2013 TEPCO burned 23 million tonnes of LNG and 7 million tonnes of coal to generate electricity, in comparison in the same period ending March 2011, just after the earthquake and tsunami they burned 19.5 million tonnes of LNG and 3.5 million tonnes of coal. LNG has twice the energy of coal tonne for tonne.

41 directly attributable deaths, but four of those from helicopter crash. Worst reactor disaster in the history of mankind and that's a tiny number. Industrial accidents with fertilizer have killed hundreds at a time

you haven't waited long enough for the slow-grow cancers, and the population most likely to get them has been scattered across a huge geographic area and isn't being systematically studied. so shut up about "no cancer deaths from chernobyl" since by happenstance and design, we'll never be allowed to find out.

for something that happened in 1986? why yes, we've waited long enough to notice the three legged children, the massive increase in thyroid cancer, the...oh wait, none of that is happening. you are funny.

* 31 immediate deaths, 6000 long term estimated. The zone of "dangerous health effects" is a LOT lower than you think it is, when you pull up the actual dosages and affected areas. * 50 miners die in the US every year, 1000 globally. There are 4000 cases of black lung in the US every single year.
* Dam failures happen every couple of years, and routinely kill 100+ people. The worst of them-- Bangqiao Dam (China, 1975) killed an estimated 171,000 people.

The plant safely began shutdown when the earthquake occurred. Damage that cause failure was entirely due to the Tsunami. Other reactors nearby that experienced the same earthquake but were not hit by Tsunami, shut down safely, as designed, without incident. The plants and safety systems were not designed to operate through a tsunami hit, and hence, the inevitable outcome when the tsunami hit. Shame on Japan for siting those plants in a Tsunami zone with inadequate protection and design.

The major thing leading up to the meltdowns was human error, both in the emergency generator rooms / power conduits not being waterproofed, and the decisions regarding what to do with the reactors during an emergency situation. There were other plants that had gotten swamped, but did not suffer meltdowns, all due to waterproofing the emergency generator rooms; If I remember correctly one plant that was swamped and survived had quite literally finished the waterproofing only a few weeks prior.

Not only that, but the reactors most likely could have been saved even after the tsunami hit. The problem was the operators ( rightly, or wrongly ) were too afraid to depressurize the reactor vessels so passive low pressure emergency cooling measures could operate, these would have lasted long enough to get pumps and / or generators on site. This decision not to depressurize was due to public fear of "wah, small amounts of short lived Iodine and and noble radio gasses would escape with the steam" mentality and lead directly ( unknown at the time. the operator actions were quite reasonable and understandable - it is only hindsight that tells us what the best action should have been ) to the larger scale and broader spectrum radio-isotope release.

What the operators were forced to deal with after the Tsunami is not nearly as relevent and the fact that the Tsunami left the plant with no emergency power and water intrusion quickly disabled and remaining systems that were battery backed. This was the case because the plant, nor its safety systems, were designed to withstand the Tsunami.

After the tusami, operators indeed were left with such a deteriorated situation that they were forced to make decisions that they should have never had to make to star

What the operators were forced to deal with after the Tsunami is not nearly as relevent and the fact that the Tsunami left the plant with no emergency power and water intrusion quickly disabled and remaining systems that were battery backed. This was the case because the plant, nor its safety systems, were designed to withstand the Tsunami.

Actually it is quite relevant. The plant could have been saved, and large scale radio-isotope release could have been avoided in the condition the plant was in after the tsunami. The low pressure emergency cooling was not affected by the tsunami, it was not used due to public fear of radiation, and the requirement that some radio-gasses would needs be released when the vessels are depressurized.Does that mean the operators made the "wrong" choices? We can't know with 100% certainty, but all indications are ( and scientifically backed up in several published papers ) that it would have been the better idea to depressurize the vessels and use the several days worth of passive decay heat capacity of the spent fuel pools and suppression rings that is the backup built in for just this type of emergency. Gravity fed coolant was on hand, the LOC accident then would not have occurred and the fuel would not have melted. The net result would have been significantly reduced amounts of radio-isotopes released ( and all of them gone within ~1 week at most ) and no need for long term evacuation and cleanup.

If my tires are rated for maximum 50 mph, and I'm going 90 mph and lose control, and I tried to swerve and wind up hitting a tree, the problem was not that I swerved the wrong way, the problem was that I put the vehicle in situation it was not designed to safety handle.

It's actually more like you blew your tire while going 55 because your speedometer was slightly off, and saw two fields: one empty but appears to be behind a steep ditch and the other with a few trees in it but has a very shallow ditch. You steered towards the field with the shallower ditch due to fearing rolling the vehicle when encountering the steep ditch.You ended up hitting one of the trees in the field, but later found out that the ditch in the empty field was just as shallow as the one bordering the field with the trees.

At the time you made the "right" decision. Looking back at it with better data, you made the wrong decision; the empty field would have been much better.

The operator action is only relevant when judging the efforts to save the plant after the major damage that was done by a tsunami that the plant was not designed to handle in the first place. Had the plant been able to withstand the tsunami without such severe damage, then operators would have not had any problems continuing the shutdown.

The solution to the problem is to either design the plant to withstand the tsunami, or don't put it where it will be hit by a tsunami. The solution is not to expect the

This is absolutely false. While there may have been some functionality of the system left after the tsunami, it was not designed to operate under those conditions and it those limited functions were not available for very long, and therefore was not effectively operable is any reasonable sense.

You should review your sources, there are several factual errors in play here.1: The low pressure emergency cooling was not damaged, it was fully functional but not used. The emergency coolant was available, and the heat sinks were also available. No external power would have been needed, these systems are gravity fed and designed as a last redundancy for situations where every other option failed. The reason this system was not used was mainly fear of radio-gas release and point 2.2: it is the fault of the

^You cannot operate injection without power. All power was quickly lost. It doesn't matter if the piping is intact. The system is not operable without power.

Regardless, the entire condition was outside of the plant design basis. You have to understand that simple concept.

Yes, its possible had the operators acted differently to mitigate the tsunami damage, the fuel melt may have been prevented. But that is not a cause. There reason the operators did not have the proper instrumentation to deal with a po

I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand the passive low pressure emergency core cooling on the BWR 3/4 systems.

As I said numerous times, depressurize the vessel and the passive gravity fed cooling works for up to days. The emergency coolant, that again was available, is located above the vessel. As long as the vessel is depressurized coolant can flow into the vessel at near the same rate as steam is bled off into the spent fuel pools dumping heat. Both the coolant and the fuel pools being used as a

But you don't seem to understand. The whole plant was completely outside of its design basis. Regardless of what was still intact, the massive damage to the plant, infrastructure, and loss of power left the operators with too much to deal with and uncertainty about what to trust or do. They were put in a position that never would have happened if 1) the tsunami did not hit or 2) the plant was designed to withstand a tsunami.

That fact that anything of use was left intact after the tsunami was a matter o

1: The plant actually was designed to specifications of the largest projected tsunami and / or earthquake - the reason it had 9 meter seawalls and survived the earthquake with no damage. The non-waterproofed stuff was a major mistake as seen by water getting past the seawalls ( as well as the France / India reactors a decade prior that had similar issues and basically told Japan to fix these major flaws). While it was partially luck that some of t

A wall to prevent a tsunami from hitting the plant is not the same as designing the plant itself to withstand a tsunami. The failure was that they underestimated the size of a tsunami that could hit that area even though there was clear evidence that, even though unlikely, such a massive tsunami could happen. Interestingly, there were other towns on the cost with higher tsunami walls. But they didn't assume a tsunami would ever get past the wall and hit the plant, therefore they didn't feel the need to desi

Nuclear has one of the BEST safety record of any power source by mWh, honestly

Nuclear power in the last 100 years has killed fewer people (all inclusive) than die in mining accidents in a decade. Fewer people have died from anything nuclear (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki), ever, than have died in hydroelectric dam disasters.

And lets not go into "long term health effects". You dont want to know the numbers for lung disease from miners, or from a dam failure (Its Oregon Trail all over again: YOU HAVE DIE

Once-a-century disasters are something to plan for. There was a host of badly designed pump systems - and business processes. It's not unreasonable to fix them given the cost of their expected failure.

Add a pile of shortcuts and fuckups to the effect of that tsunami and you've got the real story. Add in a lot of misinformation and overt covering up to that chain of failures and you've got the second story about why little is taken on trust in Japan with that issue now.

In this corner, we have a bunch of local idiots being baited by some agenda-driven journalist who is likely to twist facts and probably doesn't understand nuclear safety anyway, so probably thinks non-issues are terrifying while making serious issues out of other things he knows are non-issues.

Idiots you say? TEPCO lied and lied about the safety of their plants and what they were doing during the disaster. Who would trust a nuclear power company in Japan these days? It's not like the operators of this plant have been completely transparent.

If you put your trust in them and then things went bad in the next major earthquake wouldn't you look like a chump... Maybe Japan just isn't the best place to build these things.

You are whining because you don't trust a nuclear company with commercial interest.

In the past, US companies have exposed us to dangerous chemicals. US plastic manufacturers used BPA for plastic. We are banning BPA in the US; polycarbonate now uses BPS, which carries the same toxicity concerns but leeches in much greater concentrations. That means our BPA-Free polycarbonate is more toxic than BPA polycarbonate; BPA polycarbonate is roughly harmless.

Yes, it's trivially easy for small activists to create false fears in the minds of idiots who are at odds with professionals who know what they're doing. The professionals may be lying; but you're still an idiot if you don't actually understand what problems you're imagining up. For the professionals, it's clear: they're either lying to you or they're not. For you, it's hit-or-miss: you're screaming about something that's either a concern or it isn't, but it sounds scary in either case.

Toxicology involves dosage level. The level of BPA leeched from polycarbonate is below the toxic threshold as currently understood; while the level of BPS leeched is a *lot* higher than the toxic threshold. Toxic effects of BPS polycarbonate are much more likely and more severe than BPA polycarbonate simply because of the higher dosage--both chemicals have roughly the same toxicity.

So yes. Your new BPA-Free baby bottles are effectively identical to your old BPA baby bottles, if we added a mega-dose of

In the case of TEPCO, TEPCO has a history of lying about the safety of its reactors and the management can't be trusted to run a ramen stand much less a nuclear reactor. So it doesn't matter what experts say, TEPCO specifically is not to be trusted. And even if they are telling the truth today, they can always change their minds.

"TEPCO has a history of lying about the safety of its reactors and the management can't be trusted to run a ramen stand much less a nuclear reactor. So it doesn't matter what experts say,"

TEPCO engineers are OK, if isolated from management. The problem is that in Japan's highly hierarchical militaristic culture they will not break ranks if ordered to do something stupid by management. It's the same culture which has co-pilots regularly sit quietly by whilst pilots crash aircraft instead of intervening to co

That's the thing, they do understand the risks very well. There are known fault lines near the plant. Independent studies have suggested that the can produce earthquakes larger than the plant was designed to handle. We know that the quake itself damaged the emergency cooling system at Fukushima. Just like Fukushima, Ohi doesn't have a backup emergency cooling system.

So, the key question is can the Ohi operators be believed when they say that the improvements they have made can withstand these earthquakes and that the cooling system won't fail.

Japan has started to exploit the many Trillions of cubic feet [washingtonpost.com] of natural gas trapped in methane hydrates. Clearly that's a better alternative than restarting a power plant that's been operating safely for decades.

"The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found the nuclear disaster was "manmade" and that its direct causes were all foreseeable. The report also found that the plant was incapable of withstanding the earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO, regulators Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and NSC and the government body promoting the nuclear power industry (METI), all failed to meet the most basic safety requirements, such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing evacuation plans.[21][22] A separate study by Stanford researchers found that Japanese plants operated by the largest utility companies were particularly unprotected against potential tsunamis.[7]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]

Having read through all the comments so far, I could not help but laugh.

The only reason for Nuclear power is weapons, period. Once you come to that conclusion, once you follow the money, its easy to understand why the plants are not being shutdown.

Nulcear power is not cheap.
If the government did not insure them, they would not get built. Depleted Uranium weapons cost millions per shell, a very profitable business.
Even if a company could justify the cost and build them, there is no way to store the